I am 58 years old and this has never happened to me until today.

[chervilant]

122. Two things I just want to share:

If Calhoun's research on overpopulation is accurate, we're seeing the negative behaviors commensurate with this oft-ignored global stressor.

Perhaps William Ryan's "Blaming the Victim" might help your students see how we identify "others" and then create self-fulfilling reasons to vilify or isolate "others."

My baby sister married a man who counted among his ancestors African-Americans, Native Americans, and Caucasian-Americans. His skin was the color of milk chocolate. My sister and I were tow-heads, and pale. He and my sister helped me move to north Arkansas in the mid-80s. We stopped at a little diner in Hope, Arkansas for breakfast, and the entire restaurant reacted negatively. Customers left. The wait staff congregated as far from us as they could, and--for twenty minutes--debated who would serve us. Finally, the oldest waitress came over and slammed three glasses of water in front of us, took our order, and left--all without saying a word. Kobe, my BIL, helped keep my sister and me calm, and said we should politely accept our food, leave a tip as per usual (20%, even in those days), and be unflinchingly polite even in the face of this hatred. It took forty minutes to get our breakfast. We ate and talked and paid and left...

Kobe died in Costa Rica a year ago this August. I miss him every day.